It was different the first time

Why didn't Clinton's invocation of the Kennedy assassination on March 6 ignite the firestorm it did this time? The two statements were different. The first tightly situated the assassination allusion as a data point showing that nomination battles have historically lasted into June:

I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer.We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.

An ugly choice of illustration if you think about it, but the surrounding 'thesis statements' it was supposed to support made it less likely that listeners would think about it. Contrast the report from today's interview. Asked, "you don't buy the unity argument?" she responded:

"I don’t because I’ve been around long enough," she said. "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I don't understand it. And there's lots of speculation about why it is."

Same data points, thinner frame. Or a different frame, one that seems to evoke some opaque point of paranoia: what's behind the pressure for me to get out of the race? From that charged field, the assassination reference spills out all over.

P.S. There are weird resonances in Clinton's apology as well:

“The Kennedys have been much on my mind in the last days because of Senator Kennedy, and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever.”

“My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to. And I’m honored to hold Senator Kennedy’s seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York, And have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family. Thanks."

It's inspirational to look back to Bobby Kennedy's assassination as an illustration of the length of campaigns past? And what's up with that statement of regard for the whole family? Does she feel the need to reassure us that her deadly nightshades aren't directed at the Kennedys either?

Okay, what'd she mean this time?

Every week brings a new low for Hillary Clinton. I think that this comment to the Argus (SD) Leader hits the third rail -- and may get her run out of the race on a rail. Asked "you don't buy the party unity argument?" - that is, the argument that she's hurting the party by continuing to run -- she said:

I don’t because I’ve been around long enough, My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I don't understand it. And there's lots of speculation about why it is.

Once again, as with her "hard working Americans, white Americans" comment, I think you have to distinguish between Hillary's real-time thought process while speaking this and the unconscious bilge that propelled it. Her point was that nomination fights often carry into the summer. (Never mind that the claim that Bill didn't wrap up his race until June is almost entirely bogus; he was nominee presumptive by mid-March. ) Bill was fighting into June; Bobby Kennedy was just getting going in June when he was assassinated; the conscious point is that the nomination was far from settled at that time. But, as Ambinder asks,

why didn't she bring up Ted Kennedy in 1980? Or Gary Hart in 1984? I think she was pointing to primary races where the eventual nominee was unknown at this point in the cycle.... But 1984 would apply more, her husband was the de-facto nominee at this point, and the compressed calender really renders such comparisons null and void.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that what propelled this example was Hillary's background thought that anything can happen.